Surprising absolutely nobody except himself, Joe Biden on Tuesday announced he would be seeking a second term at the White House next year:
If he wins the election next year, he'll be president when he turns 82 years old. That's five years older than Ronald Reagan at the end of his tenure in the White House!
So, yeah, Biden is pretty old. And he's getting older and older. It's just the truth. There's no shame in it. It happens to every one of us, inevitably.
There is a bit of shame in a man's being too proud to admit when he's done with the game. I'd wager a guess that being closer to 90 than 80 when your presidential term finishes is probably a sign that you gotta hang up your hat.
Joe Biden, meanwhile, once put the bar much much lower:
In 1972, Biden, then 29 years old and a local Delaware councilman, was running against incumbent Republican Sen. Cale Boggs who was 63 years old, a former two term governor and the state's senior senator.
"Cale doesn't want to run, he's lost that old twinkle in his eye he used to have," Biden said of Boggs, who had originally wanted to retire but was persuaded to run for reelection.
Sixty-three years old! Two decades younger than Biden will be next year.
And this wasn't a one-off! Biden really harped on this guy's age, so much so that a reporter dubbed his approach the "Dear old dad" tactic. Biden was so intent on criticizing this guy's age that he opted to constantly remind readers of the historical events from Mr. Boggs's bygone era, including:
Joseph Stalin ruling Russia, jazz musicians using heroin, the development of the polio vaccine, and taxes from the 1940s.
The "development of the polio vaccine?"
The polio vaccine was first released in 1955. Joe Biden was 13 years old!
